Football for Schools or F4S, a three-day programme to ensure all school-going children get the opportunity to play and experience the beautiful game of football ended in the capital today. The programme is a collaboration between football’s governing body, FIFA, the Bhutan Football Federation and the Ministry of Education and Skills Development. Students were given practical training at the grassroots level. The programme aims to educate, nurture, and empower children with valuable life skills and competencies through football. The F4S programme was launched in 2019 as a mass participation programme by the FIFA Council.
More than a hundred students aged between four to 14 years participated in the programme held at the Changlingmathang stadium. 30 school sports instructors also took part in the F4S programme.
According to the Bhutan Football Federation, the programme will help build the capacity of school sports instructors and promote the game of football in their respective schools.
‘‘What this programme aims to do is, we try to relate football skills to life skills. So that, like the students they learn through football. They learn the value of fair play, they learn to deal with emotions, and stress, and to teach students everything through sports,” said Yeshey Dorji, Head of Grassroots Football Division of Bhutan Football Federation.
FIFA also released a digital app for Bhutan and trained master trainers, coach educators, and physical education teachers to use the digital app.
The digital app is a football-for-school app containing sessions on football skills and life skills.
‘‘We have four categories of life skills. The first one is how the child can know himself, and the second category is how he can build a relationship with others with his friends. The third one is living in the wider world. With this knowledge how he can live in the world and the fourth category is taking care of his health and well-being,” said Fatimata Sidibe, Director of Football for Schools, FIFA.
Some students BBS talked to said the programme has helped them to keep themselves healthy and engaged.
‘‘It helps us to keep healthy. I am able to make more friends. I came to know their names as well. Similarly, I am able to learn how to respect brothers and learn the way of playing football,” said Ngawang Yoezer Choden, a student of Loselling MSS.
Including Bhutan, the F4S programme is in 63 countries and has over 200 member organisations.
FIFA instructors trained about 40 coaches with theoretical and practical sessions based on F4S methodology.
Karma Wangdi
Edited by Sherub Dorji
